The Place of the Papacy in the Ecclesial Piety of the 11th-century Reformers Yves Congar, O.P. Translated by W. L. North from the French version in Eglise et Papauté. Regards historique, Paris 1994, pp.93-115. Original German version published as "Der Platz des Papsttums in der Kirchenfrömmigkeit der Reformer des 11. Jahrhundert," in Sentire Ecclesiam. Festschrift Hugo Rahner, Freiburg-in-Breisgau 1961, pp. 196-217. The understanding of the Church of the eleventh-century reformers, Gregory VII, and the canonists from 1018 onwards can be characterized by one word: it is Roman in its very nature. And this not only because it once again took up the point of view which was that of Rome itself after Leo I, but equally because of the degree to which it made the primacy of the see of Peter, the Roman Church, the central axis of the whole of its ecclesiology: the words caput and cardo, which Humbert of Moyenmoutier loved so much, fittingly sum up this way of understanding the situation. No one doubted the primacy of Rome. It was recognized in the tenth century, despite the declarations of independence which were formulated at the synod of Saint- Basle (Vierzy, 991) by Arnulf of Orléans, though more probably by Gerbert of Aurillac, and which were renewed at the synod of Chelles (995). It is affirmed by a great number of passages in pre-Gregorian canonical collections: in the ancient Anselmo dedicata; in a very clear way in Pseudo-Isidore, but also in Burchard's Decretum. Otherwise however, it is conceived primarily as a ministry which is preeminent by its wisdom and its prudence, at the head of a Church which is guided by bishops and which receives its rules for living from the councils. Thus is it portrayed in the works of Rather of Verona, but equally still, in 1038, in the works of Halinard, abbot of Saint- Benigne of Dijon, who died as archbishop of Lyon.1 The Normans, who were a power constantly on the rise, are full of veneration for St. Peter; Abbot William of Fécamp has a strong dedication to Rome; Lanfranc goes to Rome and is associated with Leo IX's reform movement.2 Even imperial bishops do not question for a moment the primacy of the Pope, not even when the conflict between Henry IV and Gregory VII is at its 1 See his letter to John XIX: PL 141, col.1157. 2 See H. Böhmer, Kirche und Staat in England und in der Normandie im XI. und XII. Jahrhundert. Eine historische Studie. (Leipzig, 1889), pp.27f. height.3 Nonetheless, when one looks closely at the texts and examines upon what precise grounds they founded this primacy, and what content and what a central place they granted to it in the ecclesiology which was being articulated, we need to recognize that, in comparison with these texts, those of the Gregorian reform express a new sensibility. (In what follows, we mean by "Gregorian reform" the movement to free the Church from the tutelage of the laity that began under Nicholas II.) In the tenth century, it was still the Ecclesia rather than the pope which constituted the fundamental reality.4 The men of the Gregorian reform, in contrast, saw the Church as dependent upon the pope and derived in some way from papal power. This is particularly true of those early exponents of a new, and still deeper, reaffirmation [of papal primacy], whom A. Fliche has grouped under the term "Lotharingian reform" and whose most ardent representative was Humbert of Moyenmoutier. From the beginning, they thought that if, according to an oft-repeated formula of Gregory the Great, bad priests are the ruin of the people,5 the health of the entire body of the Church depends on the Roman head.6 And as it is being formulated, this conviction finds its expression in a theology closely linked to the Church of Rome. The most characteristic and densest text in this regard is the first of two fragments De Sancta Romana Ecclesia which Cardinal Humbert composed in all probability around 1053-54 in the context of the discussions with Byzantium which ended so tragically with his mission and the excommunication of the patriarch Michael 3 See C. Mirbt, Die Stellung Augustins in der Publizistik des Gregorianischen Kirchenstreits, (Leipzig, 1888), p.86 n.7; Die Publizistik im Zeitalter Gregors VII. (Leipzig, 1894), pp.552, 553 n.5, 554f, 564, 566; E. Voosen, Papauté et pouvoir civil à l'époque de Grégoire VII. Contribution à l'étude du droit public, (Gembloux, 1927), pp.119-20. 4 See H.M. Klinkenberg, "Der römische Primat im 10. Jahrhundert," Zeitschrift für Rechtsgeschichte 72 KA 41 (1955): 1-57. 5 Gregory I, Registrum IX, 218 (=MGH Epp.II, 208). See Gregory VII, Registrum IV, 11 (ed. Caspar MGH Epp. sel. II, 311; 1); IX, 35 (626, etc.); Deusdedit, Contra invasores c.15 (MGH, LdL II, 314). 6 See Peter Damian, Op.7 preface (PL 145, col.161); Op. 5 (= Acta Mediolanensis, PL 145, col.13); Disceptatio synodalis from 1062, which the feature, typical of Peter Damian, which links the Empire to the Holy See (LdL I, pp.76-8; or PL 145 col.67); Humbert of Moyenmoutier, Fragmenta de S. Romana Ecclesia (see here n.12). Leo IX, Letter to Cerularius, no.36 (PL 143, col.367 = Jaffé-Loewenfeld, 4302). For comparison, one can consult the letter of John VIII to Charles the Bald (PL 126, col.715 = J.- L., 3079). 2 Cerularius on 16 July 1054.7 In this piece Humbert developed the following claims: the health of the entire body of the Church depends upon the state of the Roman Church. The decisions of this Church set the guidelines for the life of the Church even more than Holy Scriptures and the traditiones paternae; above all, one appeals to its velle and its nolle. When Rome is animated by zeal for God, almost the entire world is found on the path towards God. If Rome is negligent or lazy, the entire world goes to its destruction. No one can require the Roman see to account for its faults; "quia cunctos ipse iudicaturus, a nemine est iudicandus, nisi forte reprehendatur a fide devius" (a restriction whose inclusion in Gratian as an extract from the Acta of the martyr Boniface comes to have a determining influence on the theology of the heretical pope8). In a literal way, the Roman Church causes the rain and good weather (citing Job 12:14-15): "nec inmerito, cum ipsa specialius in Petro coeli terraeque retentet habenas [and not without reason, since it retains the bonds of heaven and earth more particularly in Peter]." One should note, at this stage of the reformers' theology, the nuanced manner in which Humbert expresses himself. Theoretician from start to finish of a truly sovereign primacy of the Roman see, he nonetheless continues to respect the universal Church, which has, in its totality, received in the person of the apostle Peter the power to bind and lose: the power to govern is found specialius in the Roman see. In short, even Humbert preserves something of the Cyprianist ideology of Ecclesia which, as H.M. Klinkenberg has been able to show, was still very much present in the tenth century (see here n.4). One will not be at all surprised to find a similar nuance from the pen of Leo IX; for we know in fact that Humbert's hand held this pen: in a characteristic treatise which the pope sent in September 1053 to Michael Cerularius and Leo of Achrida, he continues, after citing the text of I Peter 2:9: "genus electum, regale sacerdotium" [chosen people, chosen priesthood]: 7 For the Sitz im Leben of the document, see J.J. Ryan, "Cardinal Humbert's De S. Romana Ecclesia: Relics of Romano-Byzantine Relations, 1053-1054," Mediaeval Studies 20 (1958): 206-238. The texts mentioned appeared under the name of Boniface in the canonical collection of Deusdedit (ed. Wolf von Glanvell, 177-78; 189-92). P.E. Schramm published them (Kaiser, Rom und Renovatio. Studien und Texte zur Geschichte des römischen Erneuerungsgedankens vom Ende des karolingischen Reiches bis zum Investiturstreit, 2 vol. (Leipzig-Berlin, 1929), II, pp.120-33) with an appendix by A. Michel in which the attribution to Humbert is justified on the basis of stylistic similarities. 8 C.6, D.xl (ed. Friedberg, col.146). See A. Michel, "Humbert von Silva Candida (d.1061) bei Gratian, eine Zussamenfassung," Studia Gratiana 1 (1953): 85-117. Quod quamvis omnibus Ecclesiis Christi, quae unam catholicam in toto mundo efficiunt, a principe apostolorum sit vere dictum, nulli tamen verius aptatur quam illi cui proprie praesidet ipse qui coelestis regni meruit gubernacula obtinere, Domine Jesu Christo sibi dicente: "Tibi dabo claves regni coelorum," et, in speciali potestate ligandi atque solvendi, summi sacerdotii privilegium.9 [This statement, although it was truly said by the prince of the apostles to all the Churches of Christ which together make up the one catholic Church in the entire world, is nonetheless applied more truthfully to no church more than to the one over which he himself presides who merited to receive the reins of the heavenly kingdom, when the Lord Jesus Christ said to him: “To you I shall give the keys of the heavenly kingdom” and in his special power to bind and loose, the privilege of the highest priest.] Here one continues to see the presence of a certain duality even as a relationship is described between the Church universal and the Church of Rome which is so close as to be tantamount to a kind of unity .